


never tell

by Radio Rascal (Vagrants)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: 'choose not to use warnings' because i don't know if an allegory counts for using the non-con tag, Angst, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrants/pseuds/Radio%20Rascal
Summary: Galvatron is injured while championing for his Prime and tries to refuse medical treatment. The one person he can't refuse is there to make him see reason, though.
Relationships: Arcee & Galvatron (Transformers)
Kudos: 10





	never tell

**Author's Note:**

> sort of a companion piece to "good moment" which was about Galvatron helping Arcee with anxiety. well. this one is heavier than that. because bad things have been on my mind recently.

Galvatron kicked one mech to send him flying, grabbed another by the head to throw him to the ground, and raked his claws across the head of the third, dropping the pathetic creature to the ground like a dead weight. He snarled at the mech he kicked, who was rising to his knees with hands raised.

“Mighty Lord Galvatron,” the medic said, dipping closer to the scorched ground when Galvatron snarled at him, “you require treatment.”

The hilt of someone else’s sword was sticking out of his chest. His entire torso was a white hot explosion of pain, but he refused to succumb as long as he was vulnerable, as long as they wanted to—

“Please,” the medic said. “If you don’t sit down and let me examine you, this injury might kill you.”

He was  _ fine _ .

Someone’s arm slipped around his neck and yanked his chin upward. He sputtered, beginning to resist until he recognized the familiar presence of his twin’s spark.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Arcee hissed in his audial. “Attacking our own medics in the middle of a battlefield? While injured?”

He said nothing.

She coaxed him to sit on his knees, her arm slacking a little, but not enough to free him.

“They want to  _ open _ me,” Galvatron snapped.

“That is typically how treatment is applied to internal wounds,” Arcee quipped back.

“Galvatron will not be exposed to these...these…” He tried to growl and coughed instead, the wound in his chest ringing with sharpened agony. “...Putting their  _ hands _ in me!” His voice had taken on a frantic edge, which he hated but could hardly help. He was begging her.  _ Don’t let them, don’t let this happen. _

Arcee sighed. She lifted her arm from his neck to slip it around his elbow, pinning his limb to her side. “Medic, come here,” she said.

“What will our troops think when they see their commanding officer being operated on out in the open?” Galvatron was desperate to connect his outburst to something, anything other than his own primal terror. The thought of what the medics would have to do to him did not make him feel like reality was falling apart—he was just prideful, arrogant, stupid, everything but afraid and unable to control it.

The medic quivered but obeyed. One of his companions was busy treating the other, so he was on his own. Arcee kept ushering him forward and he reluctantly complied, coming to stop by Galvatron’s side.

Arcee drew her blaster and aimed it at the medic’s head. “Does this satisfy your paranoia, brother?”

The medic’s optics began to overflow, just a little, but to his credit he was strong enough to force himself into a calm.

“I suppose,” Galvatron said.

“If he makes any strange moves, I’ll kill him,” Arcee said. Her voice took on a seldom-heard softness. “Whatever you think might happen, it won’t. I promise.”

He knew it wouldn’t. He knew it was stupid! He knew he was going to die if he didn’t submit to medical aid. Still, the terror. There was a part of his brain that was deep and ignorant and only knew how to keep him from reliving the past, because the past was where it lived all the time. That part of him didn’t know it wouldn’t happen again, didn’t know this would be fine, and it was that part that took comfort in Arcee’s words.

His frame relaxed, and he turned his gaze from the medic in a tacit display of consent. At least that was something he could offer in this situation.

Arcee’s face was still and stern. He wondered if she would lecture him later or if she considered his emotional turmoil to be enough of a lesson.

The medic worked faster than any medic had ever worked before. He used a tool to melt through the blade near Galvatron’s chest, neatly removing the hilt within a few minutes. Moving to his back, the medic tugged the rest of the blade through and dropped it to the ground with a clang.

Next, Galvatron had to open his chest plates to expose the wires and lines that the sword had severed. He squeezed his optics shut during this portion of the repairs. Arcee tightened her grip on his arm, and it took all of his willpower to resist the urge to cover his naked spark with his hand, or shut his chest while the medic’s hands were in there.

It was less than two agonizing minutes before the medic slammed his armor shut. “Your internal repair system can take care of the rest,” he said in a rush. “Your spark is undamaged, but your engine block has been pierced right through. We’ll have to send you to a mechanic once we return to base.”

Galvatron huffed. Well, he fought better in root mode anyway. He opened his optics to see the medic welding the gash in his chest, then the one in his back. As soon as the work was finished, the medic got up and backed away. Arcee lowered her blaster after a few seconds.

She helped Galvatron stand. “What say you, brother? Shall we press on?”

“No. One victory is enough to please Megatronus Prime. We shouldn’t press our luck.”

“A smart decision,” Arcee said evenly. “You need to rest.”

He shrugged her off. “I’m fine.”

“Tell me why you—”

“No!” Galvatron coughed once, hard. Arcee grabbed his arm again, steadying him. “There’s  _ nothing to tell _ . I hate being humiliated. Requiring a medic is disgraceful. It isn’t the warrior’s way.”

Her expression was painfully sad. She knew there was something he wasn’t telling her, and she could probably assume what it was at this point, but he had never spoken of it with her or anyone else. It was the only secret he kept from her. He was being truthful when he said he hated being humiliated; and the suffering he’d endured during his younger years was the deepest, most shameful torture any person could experience.

And it had happened so many times. Again, and again, and again, until he lost count. When he had to open himself like this, the echoes of his past reached him in the present, every time without fail. Of course he hated medics for what they had to do, how much it reminded him of what  _ that Prime _ had done to him, and of course he hated that he hated it. He was all of it—prideful, arrogant, stupid,  _ and _ possessed by an overwhelming terror that could go quiet but could never go away.

Arcee, perhaps concerned that his pride couldn’t handle another blow, recalled the troops for him. They began the awful walk back to base camp. Galvatron tried to recapture the thrill of victory, but he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed and angry.

He did not lean on his sister, but she kept her arm out anyway, ready to receive him when he decided he needed her help.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. wanted to go in more detail in some places but i just. Could Not.


End file.
